Vaccine refusals are on the riseAmid whooping cough epidemic, health officials are pushing for more inoculationsBy Helen Gao, Watchdog Institute

Monday, August 23, 2010 at 4:30 p.m.

Watchdog Institute

Getting inoculated for diseases such as whooping cough and measles used to be a childhood rite of passage that few questioned. Now with shifting parental attitudes about vaccine safety, a growing number of California children are entering kindergarten without shots.

The trend worries public health officials because of the link between immunization rates and infectious outbreaks. As they grapple with the worst whooping cough surge in half a century, they are fighting back with outreach campaigns to promote vaccinations.

The Watchdog Institute, a nonprofit investigative journalism center based at San Diego State University, found that waivers signed by parents who choose to exempt their children from immunizations for kindergarten enrollment have nearly quadrupled since 1990. California allows parents to opt out of some or all shots on the basis of personal beliefs, be it religious objections or distrust of the medical establishment.

The institute’s analysis also revealed that San Diego County’s exemption rate has been consistently higher than the state average over the past two decades.

“Un-immunized people in general contribute to any disease rates. As the rates of un-immunized kids go up, we are inevitably going to see more and more outbreaks of diseases,” said Mark Sawyer, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego.

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The portal theory of vaccine-associated diseases subsumes the concept of vaccine-induced herd-suseptibility to diseases and should be seriously explored. The body of evidence in support of this theory has grown precipitously. Pharma and the orthodox medical establishment bear responsibility for an entire generation of functionally-impaired citizens.

Paul Joseph Watson has done the best job in describing the crisis in an article titled "Vaccine Deaths And Injuries Skyrocket As Cover-Up Implodes" on August 30, 2010.

Very good points! If it can be shown that any, many, or most of the "infected", or parents or siblings of the "infected", in any particular epidemic or pandemic, have already been vaccinated against the allegedly pathogenic microbe, I really don't see how you would ever prevail in a lawsuit against the unvaccinated.

Statistically, the fully- or recently-vaccinated have a non-zero chance of acting as a vector for the alleged pathogen.

How certain are we that a person's vaccine-induced immune dysfunction did not precede their "infection"? What if the allegedly pathogenic microbe, e.g. a virus, was not endogenous and/or activated by vaccine-induced immune dysfunction?

The parents of the children whose privacy rights have been violated by this "watchdog journalist" should immediately file a legal action agianst them for violation of these childrens privacy rights and HIPPA violations. NOTE BELOW

Per section 1177 of HIPAA:

"a person who knowingly uses a unique health identifier, or causes one to be used;

obtains individually identifiable health information relating to an individual; or
discloses individually identifiable health information to another person; is in violation of HIPAA regulations.

Such persons are subject to the following penalties:

a fine of up to $50,000, or up to 1 year in prison, or both;

if the offense is committed under false pretenses, a fine of up to $100,000, up to 5 years in prison, or both;

if the offense is committed with intent to sell, transfer, or use individually identifiable health information for commercial advantage, personal gain, or malicious harm, a fine up to $250,000, or up to 10 years in prison, or both.

HIPAA also provide for civil fines to be imposed by the Secretary of DHHS "on any person" who violates a provision of it. The maximum is $100 for each violation, with the total amount not to exceed $25,0000 for all violations of an identical requirement or prohibition during a calendar year.

These laws apply to journalist to no matter what monikor they hide under.

"Watchdog", "Freakdog", "Weirdocrat" The laws are for everybody.

Marc Haysley who are you to tell somone that they are irresponsible because they choose not to expose their child to this horseshit ritual practice of vaccinating children? Masquerading as a practicing physician giving out medical advice could land you in jail under federal charges and expose you to civil actions look it up, ok genius.

As a physician I tell people everyday not to vaccinate and why. I welcome any debate from amateurs like yourself. The only proof that vaccines save lives are from the marketing files of the pharma companies and the whores they get to spread them wittingly or unwittingly.

If you ask the DELUSIONAL pharma people they are the reason that we landed on the moon and it was an unvaccinated person that killed JFK

Anybody who tries to bully parents in front me about vaccinating their children I tell to go straight to hell. YEAH I AM TALKING TO YOU MARC

I don't think it would surprise any of us, that the whole point of the WatchDog's article might benefit them financially in donations(grants) from usual scoundrels. Of course this purely speculative, but the proof will be in the writing.

The Watchdog Institute is clearly an institutional or even industry front. Their first bs "expose" was no doubt carefully chosen for sensationalist value and for its smell of "home, hearth, apple pie, decent values"- probably all in order to work its way up to doing "investigations" like this current, lying pro-industry piece of crap. -

The reporters printed grossly false information and their editor backed them up-- all for a "good cause". Trouble is, if you wrap yourself in a flag in order to lie, you're just defiling the flag. In this case, child victims of sexual predators are being used as human shields for some shady agenda.

I wonder what the value is to putting law enforcement on the defensive? Maybe it's a chit for the future if another fake-ademic comes along for which there are mandated vaccines and police are required to enforce? Just a guess.

@ Paul - well put - these arguments are always based on the premise that an un-vaccinated child is the ONLY vector for disease.

@ Parent - the liability aspect is a frightening thought. I think there has been a lot of discussion around this in recent months / years. Some interesting arguments around how difficult it may or may not be to actually establish this kind of law, but it is a frightening idea none the less.

IMHO, from a risk management (which is what parents are all trying to do, isn't it?) perspective , the worst kind of security is a false sense of security. A "safeguard" that doesn't work. If 77% of the affected kids in the "outbreak" were fully vaxed as Karen suggests, and the compliance rate was well above the expected threshold for the "herd" (was this the case?), then the liability aspect should focus on that one devilish little detail - the vax failed miserably under conditions where it was fully expected to work. That should be the item of interest on everyone's radar. The issue here should be squarely with the manufacturers and 'distributors" of a faulty product being 'sold" under a kind of false pretense - not some other parent who exercised their God given right to informed consent.

Really, a parent is expected to accept legal liability for the outcome of not using a product - where the product apparently is defective, and where the manufacturer / industry operates under the cover of full indemnification? They could try to push this, but I have to wonder who, even in a generally sleepy society, would willingly sign off on anything like that?

parent - "...attempt to lay the foundation for legal liability on the part of the non-vaxing parent".

I am not an attorney, nor would I presume to offer advice on this topic. In my opinion, however, I predict that such a case will ultimately arise, and when this does occur, it is potentially, reachable by the U.S. Supreme Court. In my non-attorney opinion, mandated inoculations are unconstitutional, in violation of fundamental numerated and unenumerated God-given rights.

In regard to the 'herd immunity.' How many parents of fully vaccinated kids are also fully vaccinated. If not, why not. Don't bitch and moan and blame me that my unvaccinated child contributes to the spread of diseases when you 'parents of vaccinated children' can just as readily spread whooping cough and other bugs as my child could.

Wow, it's been a long time since I read an article online that did not have a single idiot commenting.

The recent East Coast pertussis outbreak? 77% of the affected children had been vaccinated for pertussis.

Mark Sawyer is just parroting what he was taught to believe and not what empirical evidence so clearly demonstrates. I looked at his PowerPoint presentation and noted that although he stated that HPV vax provided "no significant protection for genital warts" he is assigning a dollar value to its alleged protection against just such warts a few slides later.

Doctors learn a lot more about prescribing drugs than about keeping people well to begin with, or helping them make lifestyle changes that would promote better health. Ask your doctor about nutrition and you'll be handed a booklet about that food pyramid, containing recipes that feature ingredients made by their sponsoring group. That is not science or even "evidence-based medicine", as problematic as the latter is for those of us who recognise the value of alternative treatment modalities.

Medical school teaches doctors that *they* are the ones with the answers -- unfortunately all too often they're not even asking the right questions!

While we are about deconstruction of the medical vaccine story, let's touch on one inconvenient truth. There was no whooping cough epidemic in San Diego. Read Dr. Mercola "The Real Scoop On California Whooping Cough"

"He would like the statement to read something like this: “By declining these immunizations, I understand that not only do I put my child’s health at risk but also the health of others.” That type of language, he believes, would foster “social consciousness.”

Using emotional blackmail to "foster" social consciousness. Right.

I wonder how people would react if businesses asked them what kind of car they rode up in, and gave them something similar to sign before allowing them to park anywhere on the property:

“By declining the walk / bicycle / public transit, I understand that not only do I put my child’s health at risk but also the health of others.”

Maybe Sawyer doesn't even drive - who the hell knows - but imagine a world where you have to sign off on everything you do (or don't do) that could possibly affect the lives of others around you. Extrapolate the above "form" to a dozen or more activities we all partake in every day. Wanna buy an air conditioner? Gotta sign a form. Wanna travel? By air? Sign a form. Big house? Swimming pool? 2 cars? Anything with a large carbon footprint? Sign here please. Didn't donate blood this year? Not an organ donor? No foster kids? Not a volunteer? A smoker? There's a "form" just for you. Is that the world Sawyer advocates for? Do any of these guys think they walk on water?

We sit in Starbucks sucking on grande mocha's, while kids on the other side of town go hungry, and kids on the other side of the world starve to death. No Sawyer-like melodrama around that. But I'm supposed to feel like a pr$ck because I don't want any more biological products injected into my already sick kid?

"The Watchdog Institute, a nonprofit investigative journalism center based at San Diego State University, found that waivers signed by parents who choose to exempt their children from immunizations for kindergarten enrollment have nearly quadrupled since 1990."

Hopefully, now the "Watchdog Institute" will turn their attention to the main reason parents have become hesitant to vaccinate their childre .. which is .. the failure of public health officials to support pending federal legislation that seeks to fund a scientific, indenpendent study of "vaccinated vs. unvaccinated" populations to ascertain, once and for all, if BOTH populations have suffered the same, inexplicable, dramatic increase in childhood chronic auto-immune diseases, such as, autism, allergies, asthma, juvenile type 1 diabetes, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, ADD, ADHD, etc.

While the "Watchdogs" are at it .. perhaps they can ask CDC public health officials if their estimate that "1 in 6 American children" suffer these types of early childhood development disorders .. has held firm over the decade since they made their estimate?

You know .. maybe ask public health officials if the overall health of today's children has "improved" .. say only 1 in 10 instead of 1 in 6 .. or .. more likely did it get worse .. is it now "1 in 3"?

See especially pages 28-34 of the PDF file above. It’s mind-numbing in its implications. This is all built upon the never-validated theories of “vaccine-preventable diseases” and “herd-immunity”. It is an elegant, self-fulfilling prophecy which requires not a shred of valid scientific evidence.

Vaccine madness is realized and perpetuated by means of pharma’s mainstream medical media, easily-bought government endorsement, public fear of disease and pandemics, and the Social Responsibility argument.

To best understand a problem, you have to be able to define it and see where it originates.

right on, Benedetta. They'd also best be checking what the autism rates are in that neck of the woods if there truly is a significantly high number of vaccine refusals there. Looks like we have a group to look at for that vacc VS unvacc study.

As is typical, a lot of the valid risk analysis questions I would ask as a parent deciding whether or not to vaccinate have not even been addressed by this article. Such as, how were those cases treated once the children were diagnosed? What is the medical treatment protocol for helping unvaccinated kids? How many of the children recovered? Did any of the children have to be hospitalized? If some were, how long were they hospitalized? Have any of the children suffered any longterm negative health consequences from the illnesses? How long were the children incapacitated or out of school, if at all? Was treatment of the sicknesses covered by insurance? Was there a difference in recovery rates between children with healthy, nutritional diets and those who eat foods with no nutritional value. How about differences between kids who take vitamins and those that don't? How many of the parents were angry that their children had contracted these illnesses? (Obviously kids who were vaccinated didn't get sick, right? (slight sarcasm related to efficacy) And those kids old enough to be vaccinated but weren't that got sick obviously have parents who were willing to take the risk.) What about the child who was too young yet to be vaccinated against measels? Did he or she recover and how? Did any deaths occur as a result of these outbreaks?

And what about the increasing rate of vaccine exemptions that appear so worrisome? Last time I researched the target vaccine coverage rates needed to stop an "outbreak" or control an epidemic, none of the diseases I researched required 100% vaccination rates. Each disease had different requirements. Several of them require much much lower coverage rates so that 2% or 3% exemption rates don't even come close to being a problem at all. I'm quite sure that there will always be enough volunteers lined up to take the shots to prevent widespread outbreaks that I don't know why philosophical exemptions are not allowed in every state.

This article is just another bit of scare marketing without answering the true questions that an intelligent public might pose, that is if the general public took the time to think things out. Fortunately (sarcasm again) our mainstream media can keep the average Joe busy enough not to really think for himself.

“Un-immunized people in general contribute to any disease rates. As the rates of un-immunized kids go up, we are inevitably going to see more and more outbreaks of diseases,” said Mark Sawyer, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego.

What about the fact that an immunized person can still carry and spread pertussis and other diseases even if they themselves are asymptomatic? Sawyer's argument is unscientific propaganda.

Ok, Watchdog Institute, a nonprofit investigative journalism center at San Diego University:
1) Who diagnosed these children with whooping cough? What financial connections might they have with vaccine manufacturers or the CDC?
2) What labs tested for the presence of the whooping cough virus? Do they have financial connections with vaccine manufacturers or the CDC?
3) How many of these children "diagnosed" with whooping cough were previously immunized - and how recently were they immunized?
4) Cite valid independently researched studies irrefutably proving the connection between un-immunized people and THEIR increases in whooping cough rates, not simply regional increases in whooping rates. A simple correlation between the rates of un-immunization and increases in regional whooping cough indicates nothing. Correlation does not indicate causation. The underlying reasons for whooping cough increases may be malicious and multi-factorial, with investigation required.
5) Oh, and by the way, who funds you?

The full article "attempts" to be balanced which is refreshing, but this comment on exemption forms is kind of funny (if only it were that simple Mr Benjamin) -

"He would like the statement to read something like this: “By declining these immunizations, I understand that not only do I put my child’s health at risk but also the health of others.”
That type of language, he believes, would foster “social consciousness.”
Where is the "social consciousness" of the AAP "first do no harm"????????????? Where is the notarized form of consent to educate parents on vaccine adverse reactions by Pediatricians? Where is that accountability?

When will Drs., public health officials, etc. realize that all the campaigning in the world cannot replace concrete answers in this debate, bullying the "educated parent" into compliance! How long will they continue to go about this the wrong way??

I say this not as medical advice, but solely as opinion. Generally speaking, why don't we find a naturopath or integrative/complementary medicine specialist who will strengthen our natural immunity. For example, orthomolecular treatment for presumptive DNA hypomethylation, chelation for heavy metal toxicity, and colloidal silver might be considered. Such treatment is not completely free of risk, i.e., it should be medically-supervised. Not all metals are "bad". Some are essential for health.

We are likely to ALL be nutritionally deficient in a number of essential minerals and vitamins. A number of "vitamins", e.g. C, folate, B12, D3, B3, act more like pleiotropic hormones than mere vitamins.